Hey Superheroes,
The RBA kept the cash rate steady at 3.6% this week for the second month in a row.
RBA Governor Michele Bullock said the board didn’t even consider a cut, with inflation proving “materially higher than expected” and now forecast to stay above their preferred target well into 2026.
Markets digested the news cautiously with bond yields ticking higher and investor sentiment cooling across rate-sensitive sectors like real estate and consumer discretionary.
Many analysts – including Superhero’s CIO – now believe this year’s rate cut cycle is over.
Either way, here are this week’s biggest stories.
Musk might become world’s first trillionaire
Elon Musk just locked in one of the largest corporate pay packages in history.
At Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting last night, investors gave the green light to a US$1 trillion pay package for the CEO, setting the stage for what could become the most expensive compensation deal ever awarded.
Over 75% of shareholders approved of the decision with chants of “Elon” erupting in the room. Musk took the stage, thanked them and danced alongside Tesla’s Optimus robots – robots he claims will be the future of humanity.
💰 The $1T payment plan
The newly re-approved plan would see Musk awarded 423,000,000 additional Tesla shares across 12 tranches if the company hits a series of escalating financial and operational milestones.
Unsurprisingly (and rightly so), these milestones are ambitious and difficult.
The biggest milestone is for Tesla to hit a US$8.5 trillion market cap – over 5x its current value.
Other targets include:
- US$400 billion in annual earnings
- 20 million EV deliveries
- 10 million Full Self-Driving subscriptions
- 1 million robotaxis in operation
- 1 million Optimus humanoid robots delivered
Fully achieving them would take Elon’s stake in Tesla from 13% to 25% – nearly double. Also note… Tesla closed at US$446 per share last night.
🤖 Tesla’s Optimus Robots
Aside from dancing with them, Elon also positioned the Optimus robots as Tesla’s next big frontier.
He claimed Optimus could be “bigger than smartphones” and suggested use cases spanning from healthcare to public safety – joking that robots might follow people around and stop them from “doing crime”. Despite the hype, Tesla has yet to commercialise a single Optimus unit.
Still, it’s a key pillar of the new pay plan. To unlock all tranches, Tesla needs to deliver 1 million bots plus scale autonomous driving and robotaxi fleets – all within the next decade.
🔌 Chips on the Brain
Musk also dropped major AI hardware news. Tesla is developing its fifth-generation AI chip dubbed AI5 and plans to build a massive chip fabrication plant – or “terafab” – to meet future demand.
The AI5 chip will reportedly use one-third the power of Nvidia’s Blackwell chip at just 10% of the cost.
Additionally, Tesla is also exploring partnerships with Intel,while continuing to work with TSMC and Samsung.
Iren’s $15 Billion Moment
Australia’s AI ambitions just levelled up.
This week, Sydney-based Iren (formerly Iris Energy) signed a US$9.7 billion (A$15 billion) deal with Microsoft to supply computing power from its Texas based data centres.
It’s Iren’s (NASDAQ: IREN) first mega deal, and a defining moment in its move from struggling bitcoin miner to rising AI star.
💻 From Bitcoin to Neo-Cloud
Founded by brothers Daniel and Will Roberts, Iren originally operated as a crypto miner. But as the hype faded they made a bold pivot – refitting their data centres to specialise in AI workloads.
The bet paid off. The Microsoft deal alone covers 300 megawatts of capacity, with Iren saying it has over 3000 megawatts secured and ready to go. The company is already in talks with other tech giants to keep its GPU racks humming.
Once capacity comes online, Iren’s annual revenue is expected to exceed US$1.9 billion.
And investors seem to be buying the vision: Iren shares have surged 920% in the past six months.
☁️ Iren’s opportunity
Iren is part of a fast emerging class of “neo-cloud” providers – firms that only service AI infrastructure rather than general cloud computing.
Unlike AWS or Azure, they’re laser-focused on delivering “chips-as-a-service” at scale and offer big tech a cheaper, faster way to meet ballooning AI demand.
Gartner estimates it’s 70% cheaper for hyperscalers to outsource to neo-cloud firms than build their own infrastructure. The global “AI factory” market, worth US$3.2 billion in 2023, is expected to top US$50 billion by 2032 – another possible reason for Iren’s share price surge.
🔮 A New AI Arms Race
Microsoft’s agreement also includes a 20% prepayment and a US$5.8 billion payout to Dell, which will supply and install the necessary GPU hardware. This type of arrangement – multi-party, hardware-heavy, capital-intensive – is quickly becoming the blueprint for AI cloud deals.
It also speaks to the growing urgency. Tech giants like Microsoft, Meta and Amazon are forecast to spend over US$400 billion on AI infrastructure this year alone.
Iren, now valued at US$27 billion, is one of Australia’s biggest AI breakout stories.
🔦 Some other things we’re shining the Spotlight on:
NO NVIDIA AI CHIPS FOR CHINA: The U.S. government will block Nvidia from selling its scaled-down B30A AI chips to China, escalating tensions in the tech arms race. The chips, designed for training large language models, had been sampled by several Chinese firms. Nvidia says it has “zero share” in China’s data centre market but is reportedly reworking the chip design in response.
CARMA DRIVES A SLOW START: Online used car dealer Carma (ASX: CMA) traded on the ASX for the first time this week – falling 9% on its first day of trading. Its IPO raised A$100 million, valuing the business at A$370 million, but investors cited poor market timing. Management remains bullish, forecasting $127 million in FY25 revenue as it scales nationwide.\
COMCAST EYES WARNER: Comcast has hired investment bankers to explore a potential bid for Warner Bros Discovery’s studio and streaming assets. The media giant has already accessed Warner’s financial data, fuelling speculation about industry consolidation.
Keep up to date on the markets by following us on Instagram @superheroau.
